Multi-Forth ROM

[rune]

Im looking for any information the Skywave? Multi-Forth ROM. Specifically, how is it called? and is there any Manuals available?

Any other information on using it would be helpful,

Dave

[rune]

Some progress, but I dont know what I did

I put MMFS onto ROM to replace the Turbo MMC image, ran the RTOOL program and was loading ROMS to have a look at them. The Multi-Forth ROM wouldnt load but when I tried to load a Music ROM (MUSIC-R) I typed L OAD MUSIC-R by mistake within RTOOLs. And the Multi-Forth loaded. At least thats what I think happened, but I couldnt replicate it.

If a ROM is examined in a HEX/TEXT editor, is there anywhere that shows the name used to load the ROM?

[rune]

Some more progress, Multi Forth is loaded using *Forth-83

Now, I just need to find the manual...

[Richard 1049]

Hi
I realise this is an old post, but I have a copy of the Multi-Forth 83 ROM manual if you're still looking for one.
Richard

[Bobbi]

How does it compare to Acornsoft FORTH I wonder?

[rune]

Hi
I realise this is an old post, but I have a copy of the Multi-Forth 83 ROM manual if you're still looking for one.
Richard

Hi Richard,

yes please. I would love a copy of the manual

Thanks

Dave

[rune]

How does it compare to Acornsoft FORTH I wonder?

I havent used this version on the BBC. But the Spectrum version is very good.

Richard above has offered a copy of the manual. I'll go back and check this.

Meanwhile, I'm using a homebrew Jupiter ACE with vDrive storage.

Dave

[Bobbi]

I was playing with VICFORTH on the VIC-20 a couple years back. It is surprisingly good.

[rune]

I came late to Forth. Now its my favourite language.

I have it for the Beeb, ZX 81, Spectrum and ACE. Each has strengths and weaknesses, but you can always create new words to fill any gaps in the implementation.

Dave

[Bobbi]

I came late to Forth via Hewlett Packard RPL programming, which is very similar.

[pab1958]

Hi
I realise this is an old post, but I have a copy of the Multi-Forth 83 ROM manual if you're still looking for one.
Richard

Hi does anyone have a scan of Skwave's Multi Forth manual? can't find anything online about locating the manual.
Cheers
Peter

[rune]

Im still looking for a copy too. Any links to a PDF of physical copy would be great

[PhilYoung]

Hi,

I have a copy of this. I'll have a go at scanning it but it will take some time since it's 176 pages plus the covers and I only have a flat-bed scanner. What sort of scanner settings are recommended for this sort of document (looks like it was originated from a daisy wheel printer or something similar). Is there a painless way of converting the individual page scans into a PDF (that runs under linux) ?

Cheers,

Phil Young

[lurkio]

I have a copy of this. I'll have a go at scanning it but it will take some time since it's 176 pages plus the covers and I only have a flat-bed scanner. What sort of scanner settings are recommended for this sort of document (looks like it was originated from a daisy wheel printer or something similar). Is there a painless way of converting the individual page scans into a PDF (that runs under linux) ?

What we did for another book might help: if you're scanning monochrome (black and white) text, and if you DON'T want high-resolution archive-quality scans, then use your scanner's "Text" setting (image bit-depth = 1). And 300 dpi. If there's too much "noise" in the scanned image, adjust the scanner's "Threshold" setting.

But if you're scanning in colour... you're on your own!

Is there a painless way of converting the individual page scans into a PDF (that runs under linux) ?

There will be commandline tools that you can install on Linux to convert the scanned images to PDF -- but I don't know what they are! Alternatively, you can make sure that the scanned images have sequential filenames (page001.tiff, page002.tiff, etc.), zip them up, give the zipfile a filename with a specific format (search Archive.org help pages for details), and upload the zipfile to Archive.org, and it will be automatically OCR'd and converted to PDF for you.

[rune]

Hi Phil,

thanks very much for the offer. Do you still program in Forth?

I would suggest 600 dpi to get reasonable quality at a smallish size. If the images are too large, drop to 300 dpi.

Its possible to use Foxit to scan directly to PDF, here is the link. https://www.foxit.com/pdf-editor/scan-to-pdf-ocr/

I use Foxit PDF reader, but am not sure at the moment if the scan to pdf is in that or another program. I'll do a bit of research.

It may also be possible to use Adobe.

Regards

Dave

[rune]

Here's link for Adobe https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/acrobat/usin ... s-pdf.html

If you want to farm out the work, I would be happy to take it on if you could lend me the manual. I'll pay all postage costs.

[PhilYoung]

Thanks for the various replies.

I've got 'simple-scan' installed now, so I'll give that a go over the weekend and post the first 10 or so pages for comments before trying the whole thing.

It's all black/white (other than the cover which has some grey to break the monotony). It's loose leaf with a binder so easy enough to handle. The last few pages have a bit of pickup of ink from the facing page so that might need some cleaning up.

I'd prefer not to trust it to the post at the moment since it seems quite elusive.

I've also discovered that I have the RSC-FORTH user manual which is for the R65F11 and it's development ROM - this is the version of the 6502 that runs FORTH natively more-or-less. This is perfect bound, so I'm not sure how it could be scanned easily.

Cheers,

Phil Young

[rune]

Hi Phil

thanks for your help. I understand your reluctance to let the manual out of your sight.

I have the Skywave Multi-Forth for the ZX81 which is very good. I have the ROM for my BBC but other than managing to page it in, I couldnt do much more.

The Forth should be fairly standard. Its really just how to call it, use the editor, screens etc which is probably specific to the Beeb that is needed. But the full manual would be nice too

[PhilYoung]

I'll give it a go tomorrow,aiming to produce a sample for comments. Further reading seems to show that it should be simple to crop out any bad pages and substitute more careful scans.

I've found a load of R65F11 info that I downloaded in the past, including the manual and the ROM contents, so I'll zip those up and post them as well in case anybody finds it useful

Cheers,

Phil Young

[PhilYoung]

Okay, here are the last 18 or so pages of the manual along with the cover to make sure it is what you're expecting. I did these pages since they are the 'grubbiest' so the earlier pages should look better. The slight rotation seems to be on the printed copy.

These are done at 300dpi and don't look too bad IMHO. Please have a look and let me know if they will do.

If so I'll scan the rest in, probably as several parts if that's OK, to preserve my remaining sanity.

Cheers,

Phil Young

Edit: test pages removed, complete version uploaded to:

https://archive.org/details/bbc-micro-m ... -83-manual

[rune]

The scans are perfect. Nice crisp text, thanks. I look forward to seeing the rest of the book.

Dave

[PhilYoung]

OK, I'll get on with that. I'll post it as a single PDF, it turns out to be easy to combine shorter PDFs into a longer one (pdfunite one.pdf two.pdf ... combined.pdf)

Judging from the sample it'll be around 20MB in total, is that OK to post in the thread or is there somewhere I can upload it to ?

I've got my second vaccination tomorrow, so there might be a few days delay depending on if I have a reaction, or turn into a Chimpanzee or whatever.

Cheers,

Phil Young

[lurkio]

Judging from the sample it'll be around 20MB in total, is that OK to post in the thread or is there somewhere I can upload it to ?

I think 20MB is over the filesize limit for attachments on this forum. (I think the limit is 10MB or thereabouts.)

I suggest you create an account at Archive.org and upload the PDF there. (However, I’m not sure if PDFs are automatically OCR’d by the Archive.org ingestion process — unlike zipfiles containing sequentially named scanned-page images, which are automatically OCR’d at Archive.org.)

[PhilYoung]

Judging from the sample it'll be around 20MB in total, is that OK to post in the thread or is there somewhere I can upload it to ?

I think 20MB is over the filesize limit for attachments on this forum. (I think the limit is 10MB or thereabouts.)

I suggest you create an account at Archive.org and upload the PDF there. (However, I’m not sure if PDFs are automatically OCR’d by the Archive.org ingestion process — unlike zipfiles containing sequentially named scanned-page images, which are automatically OCR’d at Archive.org.)

Good plan, I'll do that when I get it done (sometime later this week I expect). I haven't looked into OCR'ing yet so if I can get it for zero effort all the better.

Cheers,

Phil Young

[PhilYoung]

I've now scanned this and uploaded it to archive.org:

https://archive.org/details/bbc-micro-m ... -83-manual

Can you please check and let me know if it's readable and otherwise OK.

Cheers,

Phil Young

[Coeus]

https://archive.org/details/bbc-micro-m ... -83-manual

Thanks Phil. It is very readable.

These things are an interesting piece of history - reading about FIG UK, for example. Then there's the rather unsympathetic attitude to those to struggle to install an EPROM the correct way round!

Then there is this paragraph:

It has not been possible to implement all the features of the PLOT command due to space limitations. The user would probably not be aware that some PLOT functions in BASIC are done purely by software using BASIC's floating point arithmetic and the others are done by driving the hardware in the screen handler. We have implemented the hardware features in FORTH for a limited PLOT command. (Although limited, it still works very well indeed!!).

This has certainly made me curious.

Then there there is the multi-tasking. Is this what the multi in the title is about? It is interesting that AMPLE is also a multi-tasking, FORTH-based language.

[rune]

Thanks Phil,

I've had a quick scan through the PDF and it is perfect. I'll copy to my tablet shortly.

I fired up the beeb and now have it running Forth. Happy days

Regards

Dave

[PhilYoung]

I'm glad it's come out OK and is readable by others.

Reading through it seems to confirm the belief that FORTH cna be described as a write only langauge.

I did win an argument once with someone who was going on about FORTH programs by saying the 'you don't write programs in FORTH you write applications'. He accepted that, but I still have no idea what it means. Sophistry at it's finest.

Cheers,

Phil Young

[Coeus]

It has not been possible to implement all the features of the PLOT command due to space limitations. The user would probably not be aware that some PLOT functions in BASIC are done purely by software using BASIC's floating point arithmetic and the others are done by driving the hardware in the screen handler. We have implemented the hardware features in FORTH for a limited PLOT command. (Although limited, it still works very well indeed!!).

This has certainly made me curious.

And, from looking at the disassembly of the BASIC ROM, this statement seems to be false. What is true, of course, is that the X and Y values as given to the PLOT command are expressions evaluated by BASIC just as it would evaluate any other expression. But then the same is presumably true of FORTH - if it simply uses the top three values off the stack then the FORTH programmer can use the features of the language to calculate those values however he wishes.

[tom_seddon]

And, from looking at the disassembly of the BASIC ROM, this statement seems to be false. What is true, of course, is that the X and Y values as given to the PLOT command are expressions evaluated by BASIC just as it would evaluate any other expression. But then the same is presumably true of FORTH - if it simply uses the top three values off the stack then the FORTH programmer can use the features of the language to calculate those values however he wishes.

Routine in question is this one: https://archive.org/details/BBCMicroCom ... 9/mode/2up - that comment in the manual intrigued me as well!

--Tom